Chapter Eighteen 1940 Aletta
Chapter Eighteen
Aletta
Aletta drifted in and out of sleep. Or maybe it wasn’t sleep. All she knew was that one minute she was numb and everything was black, and the next her eyes would open and the pain of what had happened gripped her like an iron fist around her throat.
Her stomach ached as if she’d been punched; her body trembled, and she was cold. So cold that her skin was covered in goose pimples and her breath rasped from her throat as she shuddered violently against her mother.
She shut her eyes again drawing comfort from her mother’s arm around her, holding her tight.
Keeping her safe. It might have been hours or days since they’d been stuffed into the cart, but her mother had held her the entire time.
Whenever she’d opened her eyes, whenever she shifted, whenever she cried, her mother’s grip on her shoulders had remained constant.
The cart rattled then, going too fast over a bump on the train track, and Aletta felt her stomach lurch. Burning-hot bile rose in her throat as she bent forward, vomiting all over the ground and her shoes along with it.
‘Stay strong, Aletta. We’re not going to let them break us, do you hear me?’
Aletta cried; she couldn’t help it. Tears ran down her cheeks as she tried frantically to shut out the memories of the crack of gunshot; of her father collapsing to the ground; the sound of the baton smashing through the newly constructed wall and then the sickening thwack of the weapon hitting flesh and bone when they’d found Harry; his desperate shouts for her.
They’ve already broken me. I’m not whole anymore, and I never will be again.
‘Aletta, stand strong,’ her mother commanded, as she felt the train slow down and all of them toppled forward, legs unsteady after being transported for so long. Her knees were like jelly, barely able to keep her upright.
Aletta felt dampness seeping through her shoes, her toes already wet, and she knew without looking, and from the vile smell in the wagon, that she wasn’t the only one who’d heaved up the contents of her stomach.
But where that might have revolted her once, now it seemed like the least of her worries.
She barely even thought about it as her mother transferred her grip to her hand.
‘No matter what, we keep our heads down, we walk tall, and we stay strong,’ her mother whispered. ‘Do you hear me?’
Aletta nodded numbly, as light filtered through gaps in the wooden sides of their wagon. She thought at first that they were torches being pressed to the gaps, but then she realised it was the sunrise.
‘Aletta, do you hear me?’
‘Yes,’ she managed, her voice barely a crack of sound.
She had no idea how her mother could sound so strong and assertive.
Aletta wanted to scream at her that she couldn’t be strong, that her father had just been murdered before her eyes and Harry may well have suffered the same fate.
That nothing was ever going to be the same again.
That she had nothing left to be strong for.
Even the thought of her pupils not knowing why she’d disappeared was enough to break her.
But as her breath came in rapid gasps, her chest feeling as if there were a hammer inside of it, her mother squeezed her hand, telling her that she was there.
‘For your father, and for Harry,’ she said quietly, as the door was hauled open, leaving them squinting in the light, hands raised to cover their eyes. ‘We do this for them, Aletta. Every step we take from now on, it’s for your father, to honour his memory.’
Aletta lowered her arm and looked around her, realising as they were urged forward that she was surrounded by other women.
Some were younger girls and some much older, but they were all female.
A few she was certain she recognised from the Resistance meetings she’d been to, but they kept their eyes averted, looking at their feet as they shuffled.
Each of them looked as pained and desperate as she felt inside; it was as if they’d been broken. They were all silently terrified of the fate that awaited them, of what might happen once they stepped out of this cart.
‘Where are we?’ Aletta whispered.
But no one answered her as she stepped out on to the platform, something sharp digging into her back and roughly pushing her as she heard the horrifying growl of dogs, who sounded as if they’d been ordered to rip out the throats of anyone who didn’t obey orders.
They were divided into two groups, and as rain began to fall and soak through their clothes, leaving them to shiver, their teeth chattering, they waited.